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Literature

Tidal lagoon and new homes pledged by Liverpool City Region mayor

15th November 2017

The metro mayor for the Liverpool City Region Steve Rotherham has pledged to push ahead with the construction of a tidal power installation across the River Mersey and to build 25,000 new homes by 2022.

Mr Rotherham announced these plans as part of a ten-point plan he outlined yesterday (November 10th) to mark six months in office.

The former bricklayer said the 25,000 new homes would involve all different kinds of housing types and tenancies, which will mean everything from suburban family homes to rental apartments in the city centre, while some homes will be built specifically to help house the homeless and get them off the streets.

Alongside this, he specified a 'brownfield first' approach to building, similar to the pledge made by his counterpart in the West Midlands Gary Streeter. This will be achieved using a new brownfield register for the city region.

The housing plans were laid out alongside Mr Rotherham's pledge to build new infrastructure, including world-class broadband internet using a direct connection to a transatlantic cable that makes landfall in the UK at Southport.

However, the proposed new tidal barrage across the Mersey may be the most striking project undertaken by the new mayor, providing construction jobs in the short term and green energy thereafter. Mr Rotherham has appointed former UK Chair of Dong Energy Brent Cheshire to lead the project.

Speaking about his plans, Mr Rotherham said: "If trains, docks and canals made us the gateway to the first industrial revolution, then world-class connectivity and a plentiful supply of predictable renewable energy can make us the digital gateway to the fourth."

The first task Mr Cheshire will need to accomplish will be to build a business case for the tidal barrage. The use of tidal power is being proposed in a number of coastal and estuary locations around Britain, but there have been concerns over the high cost.

A prime example of this is the proposed tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay, which Tidal lagoon Power wants to build as the first of five installations, four of them around the Bristol channel.

The government has expressed an interest in principle, but has warned that the cost of the project must be reduced.